


You're So Precious to Me (Baby Mine)

by elysiumwaits



Category: Leverage
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, Fluff and Angst, Multi, Notfic, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-28
Updated: 2019-08-28
Packaged: 2020-09-28 07:38:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20422328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elysiumwaits/pseuds/elysiumwaits
Summary: A Not!Fic brought on by some random gif-inspired Eliot Spencer feels, that evolved into some Hardison feels and some Parker feels too.During a con, they accidentally acquire a baby, which prompts them all to muse on caring for children, their childhoods, their relationship, and what could have been and what still might be.





	You're So Precious to Me (Baby Mine)

**Author's Note:**

> You know how sometimes a friend sends you a gif and you spiral into feelings about your OT3 mixed with one of your favorite tropes? No?
> 
> Anyway, this started as a love song for Eliot Spencer being gentle with children, and evolved into some kind of Not!Fic about Parker, Hardison, and Eliot all processing emotions involving childhood and children. I wound up spending most of the afternoon working on this and researching different things for it, watching clips and such. 
> 
> What I ended up doing was working through some of my own feelings about possible parenthood through Parker, specifically about the option being there but the pressure not, and about how sometimes things just don't happen, and sometimes you can want something and not want something at the same time.
> 
> Anyway, hope you guys enjoy.

I want to see Eliot - big, tough, punch his way out before he talks his way out Eliot - with a kid around 1 or 2. 

Nate, of course, knows how handle a kid, but it’s painful, digs at wounds he’d rather not reopen, and while Sophie’s not the best with children, she can get by - they’re just not her forte at that age. They offer to come by and help out, fly in from wherever they are this week, but Eliot comes in and tells them that he’s got it.

Hardison has to Google everything about taking care of such a small child, Parker has no clue about children that small and is, frankly, very perturbed by the fact that a 1 year old is basically helpless.

So you have Eliot, who does have experience with kids and babies, and, more importantly, a strong protective and nurturing instinct. They’re pretty much stuck with the kid until the end of the con for one reason or another, and Eliot is officially appointed babysitter. Eliot, who understands that a child at this age has a pretty intense fear of strangers and works to soothe and distract and appear trustworthy. Eliot (thanks to his culinary and nutrition skills) knows what a kid actually eats and how to serve it, instead of the bulk barrel of Goldfish that Hardison was going to panic-buy off Amazon along with a massive delivery of milk, toys, furniture, and other baby-related items. He keeps the order for some of the furniture, clothes, and toys, and adds a metric ton of diapers just in case.

And eventually Hardison becomes Eliot’s assistant in their brief stint as caretakers - Parker is good for entertainment, but she really has no desire to be left responsible for the baby. If Hardison or Eliot is around, she’ll turn the place into an impromptu jungle gym, but the crippling fear of something happening to someone so vulnerable on her watch is too much for her to deal with (she remembers the bicycle, after all, and the last time she was any kind of mentor to a kid). She’s got a protective streak a mile wide too, though, especially with kids, so she’s the one who kid-proofs the apartment, to an almost ridiculous extent.

_ (”Parker, is this a pool noodle on the table leg?” Eliot pokes it - it does look like she’s butchered a pool noodle in the name of safety. There’s another one across the edge of the table, and on all the corners. _

_ “Yeah, kid can barely walk, he could fall and crack his head on the table. I also stole a helmet. Do you think he needs a helmet?” Parker gestures at a backpack by the door, outside of the baby gate they’re using to block off the living room from the kitchen. Eliot can probably safely assume that’s where the stolen helmet is. _

_ He looks back at Parker, who’s sitting in front of the bookshelf with books on the floor around her in stacks. He notices belatedly she’s got a drill in one hand, one of his. “Are you screwing that into the  _ ** _wall_ ** _ ?” _

_ Parker throws up her hands, glares at him like he’s said something horribly offensive. “What if it  _ ** _falls_ ** _ , Eliot?! He’s tiny! The hysterical strength response doesn’t happen in toddlers!” _

_ There’s two packs of those outlet covers on the coffee table too, and Eliot decides then and there that the apartment has probably seen worse. He’ll let Parker do as she pleases.) _

Hardison is also really good at entertainment, and can do high chairs and naptime and playing while Eliot’s out doing Eliot-things that only Eliot can do. He can put the kid to sleep, but he can’t transfer him, meaning that he’s pretty well stuck under him in a rocking chair for an hour and a half to two hours. He gripes about it, but he doesn’t mind, not really - he likes the feeling of something small and practically helpless trusting him enough to use him as a pillow, relaxes in the calm of the gentle scientifically-proven-to-be-relaxing lullabies playing through the speaker, remembers doing this with a couple of the other kids that Nana fostered for a short time. He usually ends up falling into a light sleep, too. He knows how to be a caretaker in theory, and could easily work up the ability to be a parent - he studied early childhood development, after all - and now that the initial panic of surprise baby acquisition is over, he can handle this.

Parker, quiet as ever, doesn’t know how to feel about Hardison holding a baby, gentle and sweet - she doesn’t  _ want _ kids, but she wants Hardison to have everything he wants out of life, and she worries that maybe being with her is denying him something.

They talk about it, later, of course. Hardison easily figures out that something’s bugging her, and she comes clean about her insecurities and how she  _ knows _ that she’s not the type of person that can raise a child and have that child come out healthy, whole, and  _ normal _ .

( _ “I don’t even think I want to try.” _

_ Hardison turns in his chair. She loves that about him, the way that he gives her his full attention every chance he gets, even when he’s in the middle of a game. “That’s okay. I’m not gonna ask you to.” _

_ “Do you want kids?” Parker asks, and listens with one ear to the distant, almost-unintelligible sounds of Eliot singing Journey and walking across the floor of the guest bedroom that’s serving as a nursery. _

_ Hardison blows out a soft sigh - it’s not his annoyed one, she’s learned, it’s his thinking sigh. “I don’t… know. Maybe? I don’t know. We don’t exactly lead a stable kind of life.” He gestures at his computer, presumably to encompass all of his illegal activities. _

_ Parker’s quiet for a moment. “I’m not a mom, Hardison. I never even had a mom. I could be an aunt, maybe? What do aunts do? Archie worked for me, but not every kid needs an Archie.” _

_ “Parker,” Hardison says, in that gentle and loving tone, “Being a parent is all about loving them and doing your best. There are books and stuff out there. If you ever decide you want to, and if you don’t want to, that’s okay, too. Hell, someday we might adopt baby grifters just like Nate and Sophie did.” He reaches, grabs her hand where it rests on the desk. “You’re… you and Eliot are enough for me, okay? So, if you ever decide that having a kid is something you want, then I’ll be here. He’ll be here. And if you never want a kid, then I’ll still be here, and he will too.”  _

_ Parker can breathe a little easier after that, but it makes her think.) _

Hardison knows she could do it if she wanted to - thinks about how much she wants to do the right thing, about Serbian orphans, about a kid stealing cars to survive, making sure kids didn’t get their Christmas ruined by arrests. He knows that Parker can do anything she wants to, learns new skills and concepts with an intense, single-minded focus. Any child she chose to have would be the best-protected kid in the world. 

Growing up with the three of them would probably end up in a strangely competent and paranoid kid, but ultimately a pretty well-adjusted one. He wonders briefly about what a baby of theirs would look like, if it would be a little girl wreaking havoc at a computer or a little boy climbing through vents. Maybe more straight-and-legal with tech summer camps and ballet or gymnastics.

He thinks about it, lets himself want it for a moment while he gently rocks a sleeping baby that isn’t theirs, one that they’re protecting just long enough to get home. Hardison adds it to the “maybe someday” list, the “pretzel” list, where it’s there if Parker wants it, and  _ only _ if Parker wants it.

But it’s Eliot who is good at walking the kid to sleep and actually getting him into a crib/bed, Eliot singing classic rock and country songs as lullabies, Eliot who patiently sits through overtired tantrums, Eliot who can understand and respond to the baby babble interspersed with random words. After a few days, Eliot is the one that the baby cries and reaches for. He’s the one getting up with him at four in the morning, long past his not-safe-enough-to-sleep days where he only slept 90 minutes a night. Now he tries valiantly to listen to the baby play on the floor (completely safely thanks to Parker’s intense baby-proofing) while laying on the couch with his eyes closed.

And so it goes, for about a week and a half, maybe two. They manage to run the con and balance pseudo-parenting - Hardison does most of his work from the van, after all, and he’s not above handing the kid an iPad with a YouTube playlist of  _ Mother Goose Club _ in the name of keeping his family safe (Eliot, even in the middle of fighting off hired guns, bitches mightily about screen time and child development). At one point, Parker spends a terrifying (to her) hour alone with a baby that is fast asleep, while Hardison does some intense hacking and Eliot does some good old-fashioned B&E to send a message. 

The day comes that the con works. The mother is freed and can return to her life, now that she’s not being hunted or threatened. Eliot, Parker, and Hardison have to say goodbye to this tiny human that they’ve grown super attached to. No one cries - not even the baby. It’s part of the job, never mind that they have an apartment full of baby stuff now and a year’s worth of diapers they don’t need. They hug the baby, they hug the mom. Eliot holds on a little tighter and longer than Hardison, and Parker holds the baby just for a moment, just long enough, before passing him back. 

And then they walk away - job is done, after all. 

Hardison’s gonna miss the kid, but in that way where he got attached but he can let go easily enough. It wasn’t his kid, it was never his kid, and he made himself remember that so he  _ didn’t _ get too attached. 

Parker is quiet. The baby had reached for her, just once, and she’d given him the hug he wanted. She doesn’t know how to feel about any of this, so she makes the choice to stuff it in a box in her mind, where she can open it slowly and pick things out one-by-one.

Eliot, though, Eliot doesn’t look like he’s processing it well, which is actually pretty expected - Hardison knows a lot about psychology and even more about Eliot, after all, and Eliot in another life was a family man, Eliot in another life was a strict but fun dad, Eliot in another life made PB&J sandwiches and played soccer in the mud in the backyard. 

Eliot in  _ this _ life, though, isn’t the marrying kind - he’s made a promise, after all, “‘til my dying day,” and that’s probably as close to commitment as Eliot Spencer will ever get. He’s chosen his path, walked it since he was 18 and signing up for the army, has spent close to fifteen years choosing it again and again. This is where he stands his ground, with Parker and Hardison, and there’s no room for some suburban house with a white picket fence and 2.5 kids. He’d wanted that back in another life, with Aimee, thought about it again with Kaye Lynn in their passing moment together. It was never even on the table with Mikel. He can’t drag some poor woman into his life, into what he’s done - he can’t have a relationship with a “civilian,” not without unintentionally grifting. He doesn’t want to build something on lies, doesn’t want to bring a kid into the world and expose it to the ghosts that haunt him from the past.

Besides, he doesn’t think he could even begin to fall in love with, let alone trust, someone that isn’t Parker and Hardison. In another life, where he’d never met them, maybe he could have had that. But here he is, for better or for worse, ‘til his dying day, just as good as any official wedding vow he’s ever heard.

(“ _ It’s not something we can do,” Hardison says later, in the quiet of a closed bar. Parker is somewhere, dangling off of roofs and recovering from the overwhelming sensation of emotions. “It just isn’t. We can’t… you’re wanted in like five countries-” _

_ “Seven,” Eliot corrects automatically. “Well, maybe eight.” _

_ “Parker’s wanted in nine, and I’m just… wanted. In a lot of places.” Hardison taps the table. “It wouldn’t be… we’d be giving a kid a life of crime from the very beginning. And if certain people found out, the kid would be in danger literally all the time.” _

_ Eliot nods and doesn’t say anything. “You and I know that, but…”  _

_ A beat. They think of Parker and Serbian orphans, Parker and Christmas, Parker and a look of astonishment and joy for a split second as a baby reaches for her to say goodbye. _

_ “If she decides it’s something she wants,” Eliot says slowly, softly. “And only if she decides it’s something she wants, we’ll make it work.” _

_ “I got lots of identities,” Hardison agrees. “We could go straight if we wanted to.” _

_ Eliot takes a drink of his beer. “We’ll donate what we’ve got upstairs,” he says - the furniture, the diapers, the sippy cups, the toys, all of it can be used by another kid. “And if she brings it up, we’ll deal with it then.” _

_ “Pretzels,” Hardison agrees.) _

Somewhere on a rooftop in Portland, in the gray and the misting rain of the Pacific Northwest, Parker dangles her feet over the edge and allows herself to think. She thinks of foster homes and stuffed bunnies, of bicycles and Haagen Dazs. She wonders how many other kids there are out there like her, picking pockets and surviving day-by-day, waiting for an Archie if they’re lucky. She remembers wanting a “real family” at one point, remembers the bone-deep longing of it back when she was young and alone, back when she was stealing cars, back when she wasn’t rich and wasn’t a master thief and wasn’t one of the good guys.

There’s potential, there, she thinks, in the same analytical way that she processes cons and jobs and plans. She’d have to shift her plans, that’s for sure. It’s all hypothetical anyway - it can sit with her awhile, and she can figure out if she’d like this particular bowl of pretzels or not in as much as time as she wants to take.

Potential, though. Daydreams. What has been, what could have been, and what still might be.


End file.
